"'Since you won't come out of it by yourselves, we'll have to fetch you out. Charge, my lads, charge, and we'll treat them as we did the gendarmes in the Rue Haxo.'
"Hurling themselves against our woollen wall, they tried to push it before them by sheer weight. It did not yield an inch. Was it not built by a revolutionary leader? And were there not forty-two sergents de ville supporting it with their weight upon the other side?
"'Pull it down, bit by bit, from the top, then,' Ferré shouted; and we heard a noise as of a man being hoisted on to another's shoulders, and, for an instant, had a glimpse of a villainously ugly face between the barrier and the ceiling.
"But only for an instant. Père Dubois—he also hoisted on to a neighbour's shoulders—hurled at the man a piece of crockery intended for a very different purpose. It smote him full upon the jaw, knocking teeth down his throat. Swearing a terrible oath, he disappeared, and no one took his place. Carried away by the joy of battle, I shouted to the Communist, who had so lately been my friend and ally—
"'Citizen Ferré! Is this the way you raise the tone of revolutions?'
"'Pig! We are not beaten yet,' my old friend answered; and, as we heard him retreating down the staircase, we wondered what fresh devilry he had in his mind.
"Presently we heard a fresh noise above our heads. Somebody was breaking through the ceiling. Armed though we were, after a fashion, with cudgels and lances, which we had made by breaking up the woodwork of the beds, we knew that we could not hold out long against an assault from that place of vantage. There seemed nothing to be done save to sell our lives as dearly as we could. But, just as we had made up our minds to this, we heard a voice that reassured us.
"'Hush! Do not be afraid! We are your fellow-prisoners.' And the head which revealed itself through the broken planks—the head at which Père Dubois was preparing to hurl a fresh piece of crockery—proved to be the head of one of the parish priests of Belleville, whom the Communists had locked up as their hostages. The sergents de ville greeted him with shouts of welcome.
"'Listen!' said the good old man. 'We have barricaded ourselves, and shall fight for our lives if need be. But, in the meantime, as your lives also are in danger, we would strengthen you with our prayers and with our blessing. Kneel, my brothers, kneel.'
"We knelt. It was a strange ceremony—such a ceremony as has never been, perhaps, in the world, before or since. There was no confession. The time was precious and too short for that. But, as we fell upon our knees and bowed our heads, the holy man solemnly pronounced absolution and chanted benediction. Even I—Jean Antoine Stromboli Kosnapulski, of whom priests in a general way do not approve—took absolution and benediction with the rest. Then the cry was raised—